The atmosphere surrounding the Kerry campaign in its final hours doesn't pass the sniff test. This schmoozing crappola cannot be repeated again. I respect the work some of these operatives have done in the past and their loyalty to Clinton, but I am beginning to question if they weren't a little soft on their loyalty to Kerry. That matters to me and it should matter to all Democrats who worked their ass off to win in 2004.

Woodward's book lays it out pretty plainly. No one should be surprised.

One important point, however, is that people have started talking about the Carville - Matalin angle, but everyone stops there. If you read a bit further Mike McCurry comes into the picture. It seals the deal.

Here's a story not in the Woodward book. According to one person I talked to today, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Joe Lockhart, in the middle of a heated presidential campaign, started making new business calls out of the Kerry war room giving out confidential campaign information while he was at it. Obviously trying to hedge his bets, he'd call out, give poll data and other info to people, while trying to drum up business for himself. Class act.

Frankly, it reminds me of what McCurry did on the Net Neutrality stuff.

For DC Democrats it's all about keeping your candidates close, but your business associates and their interests closer.

As for what's said in the Woodward book, one Kerry camp insider I talked to today certainly wasn't surprised by the revelations.

"The fact that the Clintonistas did not truly have JK's best interest at heart in 2004 comes as no surprise to anyone deeply involved in the Kerry camp." - Kerry insider, who would not go on the record.

At some point it got out of control.

The DC Dems hired to fight for John Kerry simply sold him out at the first sign of a fight. Except for a loyal group closest to Kerry, many of the people in his employ simply sucked. I can't say it any plainer. Woodward offers more proof on what's been speculated about for a couple of years now.

But did Carville and McCurry really sell Kerry out? Playing stenographer, because this is important, I offer the whole picture, which goes way beyond Carville. It points to the reality that if our presidential candidate is going to win he or she has to extricate themselves from these self-interested traitors inside our own party who are willing to sell out the Democratic Party cause, which must be to fight and win elections, in support of their own interests.

It's important to hammer this scene out because we are facing a critical election in just a few weeks. Every single candidate must be prepared to stand up and fight back, because it takes more than just counting the vote against Republicans these days. As an aside, if you can vote through absentee ballot, which offers a paper trail that electronic voting does not, do it.

But when the end isn't certain there is only one thing to do: declare victory and fight it out.

It's clear Carville and McCurry had their eyes on something else entirely. With Democrats like Carville and McCurry helping us out on election night we hardly need Karl Rove.

After 1 a.m., Card called Cahill.

Cahill said the Kerry campaign felt confident.

Card was caught off guard. ... --Is there going to be a phone call?"

"We won't be calling you," Cahill replied. She seemed to be half asking whether Bush would be calling Kerry to concede.

(snip)

Matalin is married to James Carville, a Democrat who had been chief political strategist for Bill Clinton in 1992. ... ...

"Look, I know this is hard for you," she told him sympathetically.

Carville told her he had some inside news. The Kerry campaign was going to challenge the provisional ballots in Ohio--perhaps up to 250,000 of them. "I don't agree with it," Carville said. "I'm just telling you that's what they're talking about."

Matalin went to report to Cheney.

What? the vice president asked. ...

"You'd better tell the president," Cheney told her. ...

"They're going to contest it," Matalin said.

"What does that mean?" the president asked. He had his note cards with talking points in hand, ready to go over to the Reagan Building to declare victory.

Matalin said somebody in authority needed to get in touch with J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican secretary of state in Ohio, who would be in charge of any challenge to the provisional votes.

(snip) skip forward to page 347...

"I'm the president of the United States," Bush said fuming, "waiting on a secretary of state who is a nut." ... ...

Reports came in that the networks wanted to go off the air without calling the race for either candidate.

Rove shouted, "They can't go off the air!"

At 3:36 a.m., a very sensitive communication from the Kerry camp was relayed to Rove and Bartlett at the White House. Mike McCurry, Clinton's former White House press secretary and a last-minute addition to the Kerry campaign, had e-mailed Nicole Devenish, the Bush campaign communications director, an off-the-record congratulations, advising that the Bush team should not try to force a resolution now. Don't pressure Kerry, McCurry said. In the end, he believed Kerry would do the right thing.

Bartlett and others told Bush about the e-mail, summarizing the message as "We'll do the right thing at the right time." They could trust that McCurry would be in a position to know what the Kerry campaign was thinking, Bartlett said, but they had to be careful not to put too much stock in it. At least we know there are people in the Kerry camp giving rational advice, Bartlett said. ... ...

I don't know, sounds thin. The campaigns were coming to an end. They probably wanted to have a job afterward. Didn't they join Kerry in the last month or two? I think Kerry's campaign did pretty well over that period it was September and earlier when he was having problems and that had zip to do with Clinton.

You mean they can't line up a job for after the campaign assuming they are taking care of business. Can we get a statement from all the other workers saying they NEVER did talk to anyone about a job during the campaign. Hell I don't even know if this story is true!

At 3:36 a.m., a very sensitive communication from the Kerry camp was relayed to Rove and Bartlett at the White House. Mike McCurry, Clinton's former White House press secretary and a last-minute addition to the Kerry campaign, had e-mailed Nicole Devenish, the Bush campaign communications director, an off-the-record congratulations, advising that the Bush team should not try to force a resolution now. Don't pressure Kerry, McCurry said. In the end, he believed Kerry would do the right thing.

Goddman it, this really pisses me off. Who the hell do these people think they are? Above the fray? Bullshit. Advising BushCo on how to handle Kerry to assure his acquiescence is beyond schmoozing. It is downright disgusting.

14. It's not a tactic, Jim. I have been anticorruption for over twenty years

and spent most of those years defending Clinton.

I don't believe he started down that road, but he has been forced over the years to keep their secrets. In my view, once the books are opened, Clinton would breathe alot easier, too. Because public will KNOW he was forced.

23. Baloney - I care about what's INSIDE IranContra, BCCI, and Iraqgate. You

Edited on Mon Oct-09-06 07:08 PM by blm

don't want to believe that, but you can find hundreds of posts I've made defending Clinton here at DU, and it wasn't until his book came out and I realized how much was missing, that I became concerned about the reasons why.

I STILL defended him on 9-11 and was one of the first to spearhead a media movement to attack the Path 9-11 lies. Look it up. When he is lied ABOUT, I defend him. When he's the one who isn't being straight, I point it out. Attacking me as some sort of operative against him is absurd - I didn't CREATE my suspicions of his motives in a vacuum. His book went a long way to help create my caution.

But you have chosen a different path now. Can you tell me with a straight face (or uh keyboard) that you could see a President Kerry reopening Iran Contra just to shut down Jebby Bush by smearin his Daddy in 2004?

In the case of BCCI you fail to see that once the Kerry investigation was closed as indicated there was no where to go in terms of a conventional investigation. (I know you disagree.)

Iraqgate was investigated by the Clinton Justice department and a report issued 1995.

fiercely and then he suddenly caved and took responsibility - a young man of 35 accepts a light jail sentence and a few years later is reported as dead of natural causes?

And yes I do believe Kerry would open books - and I am not the only one. Gary Webb also believed it would happen and that he would be publically vindicated on CIA drugrunning - another downplayed operation of Poppy's.

like you were crazy. After all Iran Contra was investigated for 6 years and the country does not support dragging Presidents through the mud for what would be perceived (called) a political witch hunt. What little is not known would not have changed the narrative much. Assume he Poppy was involved, assume it all, most people do.

Now take the Kennedy Assasination, sure, he coulda done somethin there. There are some issues the public does care about, Iran Contra is unfortunately not on the list.

a BCCI investigation going forward? I doubt it. It was intelligence work. The point is you don't know what the CIA, FBI and Executive did to follow up on some of that information. Obviously as you noted Kerry and Clinton agreed on a bill to address some of the problems with Banking regs.

Obviously Clinton was very aware and involved and committed to addressing Middle Eastern issues that were better known as a result of BCCI.

33. Yet he couldn't bring himself to reference it even as an education tool?

Or to keep Kerry out of the story that he was so much part of and very much identified with and who crafted much of the legislation needed? Not unlike he did with Vietnam normalization.

Clinton praised McCain for leading on it when McCain's own book states that he couldn't have gone through with it except for Kerry's leadership on it, as McCain almost broke down a couple times and Kerry kept plugging away. McCain never spearheaded the effort - Kerry did and everyone on the committee praised him saying it never would have happened without Kerry keeping them all together on it. In Clinton's book Kerry became just another comma in that retelling of the story and he turned McCain into the pointman, completely contrary to how it went down.

I was happy as a clam when I received it as a Christmas gift, but it tore at my heart that so much I knew so well turned up missing and without explanation or backstory to why they downplayed or cut out really serious matters.

and have treated it more like an encyclopedia - looking things up by the index. What BLM says re: Vietnam is true. I know because in 2004, I looked to see what he said about Kerry - because at that point I was looking at everything to figure out who he was.

My biggest problem with this is that the book was not finalize in April when the nominee was known. I don't know if many people did what I did, but you would think that you would give the party's nominee the credit deserved and it could have been done adding leas that a page to the book.

As it was, there was a strange discussion on the Weld/Kerry match up, where Clinton spoke of Weld as his favorite governor and then says but he didn't want to lose Kerry as a top expert on technology and the environment. He then said that Kerry also had been committed to programs on minority youth problems, an area there were no votes in.

Even if this were not the party's nominee, this is weak - when does a President even think about whether he wants his party to win. It also doesn't mention the work with veterans, the POW/MIAstuff needed for "his" accomplishment in putting Vietnam behind us, or foreign policy - I guess he forgot that Kerry negotiate a deal with Jesse Helms to get Clinton's ambasadors confirmed.

Kerry had a list of 20 areas that needed investigation. The very first one dealt with looking further into how BCCI funded A. Q. Khan in developing Pakistan's bomb and how they evaded the nucleur proliferation bans. Don't you think a thourough investigation of this in the early 90s could have identified the beginnings of the A. Q. Khan network? (Have you noticed the number of questions on Pakistan that Kerry asked Rice - even now the guy is essentially a free man. (He helped NK and Iran)

So, looking at the issue Kerry and his staff placed as number 1 could have helped. (That and if the Republicans would have not blocked Kerry's international money laundering legislation - it was teh Republicans in teh Senate, not Clinton there.)

As to the Clinton people, from the time Kerry started winning primaries, they peddled the "ABB" stuff. This was always a concept in primaries, not the general election - where it makes no sense. In any contested year a percent of the people supported the nominees opponents, but just as I in 1992, recognised Clinton as the winner - Kerry was the winner, far more easily, in 2004. Yet Begala and Carville mentioned that nearly every time they were on.

Lockhart nearly caused the Kerry campaign to be caught up in the Rather mess. Kerry, as squeaky clean a politician as you can find, was fortunate that Cleland was in charge of those types of decisiona.

It is NOT Clinton himself that I think was harmful in 2004, it was his people who were. The fact that people here ignore this and think that more involvement of the Clinton people would be good is stunning. (The only thing I fault BC for is not holding his book up another 6 months. It took at least 2 weeks of air time from the campaign. Also, the main topic discussed was not peace and prosperity, but Monica Lewinsky. That was NOT helpful.)

but additionallyAny information we had on A.Q. Khan from BCCI would have been picked during this period or already known by the CIA and the non-proliferation people. This was a CIA problem. BCCI, the model, enough was known for intelligence analysts to look for other such networks and seek out additional BCCI info from foreign sources, info that couldn't be obtained by the Senate subcommittee accting in an official manner.

53. Yes - and a great coincidence RFK and other people close to Kerry brought

Edited on Tue Oct-10-06 09:45 AM by blm

election fraud further into the public view, and have even finally gotten Chris Dodd, the pointman for Dems on election issues, on board after all his former resistance to the issue.

Of course, some people just like to assume that these things just happen in a vacuum, but there are others who understand that convincing others and gathering support takes time and cumulative evidence.

And you can either keep shooting the idea down, or work with those of us who side with OPEN GOVERNMENT.

As Robert Parry said in a recent essay - there can be no responsible approach to dealing with all the serious problems out there BECAUSE the public knows so little about what really went down and how those matters led to everything happening today.

You either support those lawmakers who are on the side of open government or oppose them. As a CITIZEN in this democracy, I am fully in support of those lawmakers who want me to know MORE, not less, about our country's actions and involvement in world matters.

61. Wrong. I do KNOW that BushInc will be exposed more when Kerry gains power.

YOU want to side with tearing him down, and those of us who believe in him BECAUSE we know his intentions regarding the layers of corruption surrounding past government actions that are the roots of everything happening today.

And if you had to bet your house on which of the possible Democratic primary contenders for 2008 was the one most likely to open the books on past BushInc corruption as president, who would you bet on?

you need more people than in the primaries, who were the largest group of experienced Democrats? I have seen millions of posts saying what Kerry needed was the cracker jack Clinton team. If Kerry runs again, junior people who were loyal to him may be added to the senior people he had. A team loyal to Kerry would protect him a lot better.

than a shithouse at a 4th of July picnic where the potato salad was left in the sun too long. He's consistently trashed Howard Dean, he badmouthed Kerry during the 04 primaries (then Kerry's campaign hired his firm for the general election), but he's basically failed at every campaign he (or his partners Greenberg and Shrum) has ever run except the two Clinton elections which turned out how they did because Clinton was a master politician (bullshitter), not because Carville had any skills. Besides I think he had a big conflict of interest in 04. He was probably already under contract to the Hillary in 08 campaign and he knew if Kerry got elected in 04 there was no way she could win the race four years later.

However, I can't understand how his phone call tipping off the pubs could possibly had any impact on Kerry's decision to concede. If Carville had advised Kerry to do so, yes. But as far as I know neither Woodward nor anyone else has alleged that he did so. So I have to assume that dumb decision was Kerry's alone.

"Carville told her he had some inside news. The Kerry campaign was going to challenge the provisional ballots in Ohio--perhaps up to 250,000 of them. "I don't agree with it," Carville said. "I'm just telling you that's what they're talking about."

If it looks like betrayal, smells like it, it most likely is betrayal.

Begala and Carville have had agendas for a while. One of them was Howard Dean...getting people to think he was crazy. They did it openly on Crossfire. Looks like another was Kerry.

never challenged? What would have been the result of a vote re-count in Ohio? Do you know? We will never know because Kerry decided to just go away rather than fight. I'm not weighing in on if it was the right or wrong thing to do because it is WAY too late in the game to have an opinion on that. It's just a small nagging sensation in the far back reaches of my brain....why didn't Kerry ask for a review of the provisional ballots in Ohio?

It may very likely have had no impact. But it was inappropriate, to say the least. I blame these people as individuals, not their connection to Clinton. Knowing the opposition, my expectation is an airtight campaign, not this crap. I expect loyalty and deference to the top of the food chain, not taking it upon themselves to communicate with the enemy and, make no mistake, these people are the enemy.

It was unconscionable and they are probably just as guilty of selling Kerry out. But more importantly: they sold out the American people for political gain. Anyone who betrayed the Democratic ticket in 2006 is partly responsible for all the death, suffering and loss of liberty that has occurred since the election.

I thought they were pretty united in support. But I am not an inside player so what do I know. I remember the convention and how I thought it went off very well. I remember Kerry going to stand at the capitol with his fellow Dems to launch a counter attack on one occasion. I remember Teddy of course. And Clark and Dean and Cleland. I remember the debates and how he made Bush look like a fool. I remember the Unity Dinner and the Bill Clintons and Jimmy Carters speeches. I remember how bad I wanted Kerry to win.

he has learned a lot over last couple years. and we have watched over a couple years

those people you are talking, you are right. many of the democrat talking heads would agree though with media and repug talking points. like ya kerry is an abb vote. and kerry doesn't have a plan. both those were not true and the dem speaking up for kerry went along. and the swift boat attack. i sawthe same stickingup for kerry, but not a rush from dems like the repug does. not long after kerry swiftboating, murtha was.... and kerry showed how it was done. i wasn't impressed with hillary at the time and thought our dems could have been more voistrous... other than those you mentioned. but i do agree, dems were untied, i didnt see otherwise.

I love that Kerry asked Carter and Gore and all the primary losers to speak. Carter had not been asked since 1980. This was a very gracious move and clearly part of Kerry's desire to reach out to everyone. Clark and Dean were incredible in that they put any problems aside and fought for Kerry. (Cleland from all comments was intensely pro-Kerry from the beginning, even giving Kerry a family Bible to take with him.)

I suspect that in addition to the broadcast media being so different, there was a bizarre twist to the print media. The 2 most important newspapers, with a recognized liberal bias had many reporters who had become neo-cons. I'm more familliar with the NYT than the WP, but both had unenthusiastic coverage of Kerry on foreign policy. Now, you saw debate one. Kerry did spend his 20 years on the SFRC well. Now, fast forward to the estatic coverage of Bush's spreading democracy innaugral speech - they didn't even notice that the Bushies were now claiming this as the reason for war. (Allbright in her new book speaking of foreign policy vision going forward actually quotes Kerry, not from 2004, or even 1972, but from his Yale speech of 1966! This suggests there was some reason to give this man some credit on foreign policy.)

Carville passes the word to his wife, McCurry give the Bush campaign advice on how to handle Kerry. This is totally completely outrageous. How dare they?

At 3:36 a.m., a very sensitive communication from the Kerry camp was relayed to Rove and Bartlett at the White House. Mike McCurry, Clinton's former White House press secretary and a last-minute addition to the Kerry campaign, had e-mailed Nicole Devenish, the Bush campaign communications director, an off-the-record congratulations, advising that the Bush team should not try to force a resolution now. Don't pressure Kerry, McCurry said. In the end, he believed Kerry would do the right thing.

Bartlett and others told Bush about the e-mail, summarizing the message as "We'll do the right thing at the right time." They could trust that McCurry would be in a position to know what the Kerry campaign was thinking, Bartlett said, but they had to be careful not to put too much stock in it. At least we know there are people in the Kerry camp giving rational advice, Bartlett said. ... ...

42. Good post. On Carville, did he assume his wife would use the info...

Edited on Mon Oct-09-06 11:59 PM by zulchzulu

...and bring it over to her camp? It would be interesting to hear him say it was only pillowtalk not meant for campaign action plans...

If Carville assumed Matalin was going to use his inside information in the campaign strategy which was not announced anywhere outside of the campaign, then he surely sold out Kerry.

I've always assumed that Carville and McCurry wanted to have Hillary run in 2008...and if Kerry was working on his second term, it wouldn't look too good for her chances. I've also assumed that Bush was probably wiretapping the Kerry campaign without a warrant to find out if there are terrorists in his midst...

I'd give Carville a pass on any campaign at this point. Even the possibility of breaking that trust is poison.

That's probably the worst possible format for a book of that nature. Probably because I was familiar with much of the stuff, I got bored very early in the book, and put it aside for later listening. I can see now that I'd better get back to it pronto. Thanks to all for this insightful dialog!

pnormanOn edit: I see that book is also availble here: http://www.ereader.com/search?keywords=woodward&x=18&y=...The main advantage of a book in etext format is that one can use a search engine; something far mor efficient than any index. For copyright protection, the copy & paste function is usually disabled, but that's no big problem. And if I do order it, I can load it in the same pdaphone I keep the audible.com book in. KEWL!

any of the other K-Street whores anywhere near their campaigns gets what they deserve, now that we know about them like we do. They are dedicated to the proposition of a Clinton Presidency, period. Everyone else is thrown under the bus.

68. Then why did BushInc have to suppress votes, purge voter rolls, and rig

machines all over the country to stay in power?

And wouldn't it have been easier for Kerry to just lose at least ONE debate if he wanted Bush to win? And didn't the powers that be NEED BUsh to appear more presidential and competent than Kerry? Why did Kerry outperform Bush at every matchup?

And can you answer why Kerry won his matchups with Bush but the DNC failed to spend their FOUR YEAR TERM countering the RNC's tactics of vote suppression, purged voter rolls and rigged machines?

I think you have your suspicions on the wrong player. Kerry won his matcchups. DNC failed miserably and unexplicably at their matchups.

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